Even as his eyes struggled to focus on the wobbling view of the castle, dusk-kissed on one side, her assessment made Ferdinand cough out the smallest of laughs. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“Domingu’s heart was black and everything in that building reflects the greedy lump of coal in his chest.”
This girl never wasted an opportunity. “And yet your fatherwantedto visit?”
“More likehadto. Domingu’s family tree spread far and wide, but Father was expected to visit yearly.”
“Even though he was a continent away?”
“Especially so. My father was tasked with maintaining the Basilican relationship with the Eritrian Crown. Considering the Eritrians are known for picking fights they cannot easily win, Domingu and my father were quite happy to keep them in constant supply of weaponry for a twenty-year litany of misguided attacks, so long as they kept paying for all that beautiful Basilican steel.”
Yes, during their time together in the Warlord’s tent, Geneva had relished any news of Eritri’s bluffs and blunders. It was suggested that the Eritrians accepted so many refugees from Torrence and other conflicted places simply so they’d have more bodies to ship out to their own front lines. This was something Ula and Urtzi had confirmed—they were pirates simply so they wouldn’t be left to rot in someone else’s war. Urtzi because he would have been forced to be a grunt in the Eritrian army, Ula because Eritri’s female refugees were expected to serve the men of the military in other ways.
“Keep those weary eyes peeled for Geneva’s ship up front. I’ll keep close watch from the wheel.” Then, with a kiss to his ear, Osana abandoned him to steer theGatzaltoward the mouth of the port. Basilica’s harbor was wide and bustling, even at this time of evening. The light was falling, and yet ships exited and entered as if under the noontime sun.
Shores to be seen and gold to be made.
That was the thing about the sea—it waited for no man. It never slept, never stopped moving, and business never ceased. Basilican steel was celebrated the world over, not only on the continent—Eritri wasn’t the only buyer drooling from another mighty piece of rock.
They swept the mouth of the port once to no avail. Nowhere was there a small Myrcellian ship missing a triptych flag.
“Could it be possible that she charted a course elsewhere?” Osana was trying to solve the problem out loud. “Myrcell? Or all the way around the continent for the Port of Torrent, er, Torrence?”
Possible, yes. But not likely. Ferdinand knew Geneva. He knew that she understood better than almost anyone how to read the choices set before her in such a way that the best course of action was as clear as crystal. She’d survived that way her entire life. She would not stop now.
And her best chance was Basilica.
It was empty—headless. She had the blood and attitude to claim it without a single lost life, and, better, she had the advantage of time, which would allow her to become ensconced before a single person who could contradict her could say otherwise.
The remaining Basilican councilors and soldiers had surely arrived from Ardenia by now, and if Geneva was here, there would’ve been very little they could do to change the course of the tide she’d already churned.
Wait.
“Osana, where are the Basilican army ships? The party that left Ardenia should have arrived ahead of us.”
“The royal quay.” Her voice was slower than usual, as if it were stumbling to illuminate her memories of the last time she’d been to this place. “There’s a good chance that is where Geneva came ashore as well. Yes—she wouldn’t want to disembark surrounded by all the eyes at the harbor.”
“Can you steer us to it?”
“Indeed.”
“And will they let us in?” Ferdinand asked. “No offense to the pirates but the entire reason we used this ship is because it’s not exactly regal.”
Again, Osana was quiet a moment. “I don’t recall the procedure to enter, I must admit. No harm in trying. Perhaps even if we cannot enter, we can spy her ship before we’re forced to turn around.”
It was a plan. And not a half-bad one either, especially with dusk fading to pewter water and silver air.
Osana veered the ship in a hard, cutting turn straight for the Aragonesti, and Ferdinand held on tight, his head and stomach swooping in an exaggerated arc matching the ship’s new path. After a dozen minutes or so, Osana shouted a warning that was just louder than the slosh of water against the hull. “Look alive. If we’re stopped, it’ll be in the next few moments.”
Ferdinand blinked, the night truly encroaching now as the mountains swallowed the sun. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that theGatzalhad just threaded through the jut of two boulders as jagged as a wolf’s teeth bracketing the mouth to another cove, this one deeper inland. So deep, it almost seemed as if it were an artery straight into themountains. The Aragonesti, which had seemed so high and so far, now loomed as if carved from the rock ahead. Then, with one final shift of the current, they slid past the last sawtooth boulder and into a harbor both deep and wide, and completely full of Basilican military vessels.
They lined the quay like the rib bones of a boar, long and straight and all anchored against long piers of sun-bleached wood. Garlands of bougainvillea wrapped every rope and pillar, sweating and wilting—trappings to celebrate the wedding of Inés and Domingu, no doubt. Now forgotten and as dead as the groom himself.
Ferdinand’s heart kicked in his chest—it felt very much as if they had slipped into the mouth of a sleeping beast instead of a harbor.
It only took a minute before he was proven right, because there, at the head of the very first pier, was a little Myrcellian schooner missing its colors.
“She’s here.”
